I am just about to sit down, sip on a cup of tea and grade your essays. Sometimes it is daunting to look at the list of submissions–then look at all the other things in life I need to do–and find the energy to begin…but it is what I have to do. I trusted you to do your part, now I must do mine. Since I have so many papers to grade, I have a bit of a system I use. It works for me, and I hope it will work with you. I do not really believe in the term “rough draft.” Every essay should be as good as you can possibly make it be. Then again, no essay is really as good as it can be. Most of your essays use a rubric of some sort to guide the flow, structure and content. If you pay attention to that and if you follow the “details” of the assignment, you will do well. Usually I put checks where you do well; I put slash marks where a new paragraph should be; I circle areas where there is a punctuation, grammar or proofreading mistakes, and I leave a comment with overall assessment of your work. And then I give it a grade.

If you want to revise, rewrite or rework your paper, I will certainly allow that, and I will increase your grade “if” you sincerely work to fix the mistakes. If you don’t, I am not going to chase you down. I will simply hope you work more diligently on the next paper or project. I do my best to return your papers in a timely way. If your paper is not turned in on time, it may take me a while to grade it. I just do not have the time to grade papers at your leisure. Usually, I will ask you to write a brief “metacognition” attached to each paper that lets me know about your experience in writing the paper. It helps me to understand the good and the bad of any assignment, and it should help you understand more fully what you need to work on as you grow and mature as a writer.

Metacognitions do count as journal entries! Sometime tonight your iPad should ding to let you know your paper is in. Please look at your essay, read my comments and try to figure out why I marked what I marked. I screw things up all the time when I write. I get it.

Writing well is not easy. Smile and resolve to make what could be better, better! It is what all writers worth anything always do.